Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

Android is open—except for all the good parts.

Six years ago, in November 2007, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was announced. The original iPhone came out just a few months earlier, capturing people's imaginations and ushering in the modern smartphone era. While Google was an app partner for the original iPhone, it could see what a future of unchecked iPhone competition would be like. Vic Gundotra, recalling Andy Rubin's initial pitch for Android, stated:

He argued that if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.

Google was terrified that Apple would end up ruling the mobile space. So, to help in the fight against the iPhone at a time when Google had no mobile foothold whatsoever, Android was launched as an open source project.

In that era, Google had nothing, so any adoption—any shred of market share—was welcome. Google decided to give Android away for free and use it as a trojan horse for Google services. The thinking went that if Google Search was one day locked out of the iPhone, people would stop using Google Search on the desktop. Android was the "moat" around the Google Search "castle"—it would exist to protect Google's online properties in the mobile world.

Today, things are a little different. Android went from zero percent of the smartphone market to owning nearly 80 percent of it. Android has arguably won the smartphone wars, but "Android winning" and "Google winning" are not necessarily the same thing. Since Android is open source, it doesn't really "belong" to Google. Anyone is free to take it, clone the source, and create their own fork or alternate version.

As we've seen with the struggles of Windows Phone and Blackberry 10, app selection is everything in the mobile market, and Android's massive install base means it has a ton of apps. If a company forks Android, the OS will already be compatible with millions of apps; a company just needs to build its own app store and get everything uploaded. In theory, you'd have a non-Google OS with a ton of apps, virtually overnight. If a company other than Google can come up with a way to make Android better than it is now, it would be able to build a serious competitor and possibly threaten Google's smartphone dominance. This is the biggest danger to Google's current position: a successful, alternative Android distribution.

And a few companies are taking a swing at separating Google from Android. The most successful, high-profile alternative version of Android is Amazon's Kindle Fire. Amazon takes AOSP, skips all the usual Google add-ons, and provides its own app store, content stores, browser, cloud storage, and e-mail. The entire country of China skips the Google part of Android, too. Most Google services are banned, so the only option there is an alternate version. In both of these cases, Google's Android code is used, and it gets nothing for it.

It's easy to give something away when you're in last place with zero marketshare, precisely where Android started. When you're in first place though, it's a little harder to be so open and welcoming. Android has gone from being the thing that protects Google to being something worth protecting in its own right. Mobile is the future of the Internet, and controlling the world's largest mobile platform has tons of benefits. At this point, it's too difficult to stuff the open source genie back into the bottle, which begs the question: how do you control an open source project?

Google has always given itself some protection against alternative versions of Android. What many people think of as "Android" actually falls into two categories: the open parts from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which are the foundation of Android, and the closed source parts, which are all the Google-branded apps. While Google will never go the entire way and completely close Android, the company seems to be doing everything it can to give itself leverage over the existing open source project. And the company's main method here is to bring more and more apps under the closed source "Google" umbrella.

Closed source creep

There have always been closed source Google apps. Originally, the group consisted mostly of clients for Google's online services, like Gmail, Maps, Talk, and YouTube. When Android had no market share, Google was comfortable keeping just these apps and building the rest of Android as an open source project. Since Android has become a mobile powerhouse though, Google has decided it needs more control over the public source code.

For some of these apps, there might still be an AOSP equivalent, but as soon as the proprietary version was launched, all work on the AOSP version was stopped. Less open source code means more work for Google's competitors. While you can't kill an open source app, you can turn it into abandonware by moving all continuing development to a closed source model. Just about any time Google rebrands an app or releases a new piece of Android onto the Play Store, it's a sign that the source has been closed and the AOSP version is dead.

Search

We'll start with the Search app, which is an excellent example of what happens when Google duplicates AOSP functionality.

In August 2010, Google launched Voice Actions. With it, the company introduced "Google Search" into the (then) Android Market. These were the days of Froyo. The above picture shows the latest version of AOSP Search and Google Search running on Android 4.3. As you can see, AOSP Search is still stuck in the days of Froyo (Android 2.2). Once Google had its closed source app up and running, it immediately abandoned the open source version. The Google version has search by voice, audio search, text-to-speech, an answer service, and it contains Google Now, the company's predictive assistant feature. The AOSP version can do Web and local searches and... that's it.

Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron.amadeo@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo

From the standpoint of the individual user, Google is what brings value to Android devices and makes them useful, so that right there is a pretty good reason why the ASOP versions of those apps have stagnated. For example, the Nook tablet devices really didn't become all that useful for most users until they gained access to the Google services and the Play Store. You have to be a Stallman-level open source zealot to even entertain the notion of using a Google-less Android, because the experience honestly kind of sucks when you take Google out of the equation. Remember, customers these days aren't buying for the OS, they are buying for the larger ecosystem. The OS is just a way to get them the services they want to use, and all it is there for is to get in the way as little as possible.

Of course the flip side of the closed source apps is that they actually get updated. Having an open source camera app is great, but it doesn't really help you much if you're running an 18 month old build because Samsung doesn't consider it profitable enough to update your firmware.

Of course the flip side of the closed source apps is that they actually get updated. Having an open source camera app is great, but it doesn't really help you much if you're running an 18 month old build because Samsung doesn't consider it profitable enough to update your firmware.

With all due respect, why would Samsung have to 'update the firmware' in order for you to update your camera app? From using Kindle Fire, the fact is that you can download and update apps separate from having to update the firmware itself.

Google might want to rethink the path that they are going down. This could obviously lead to that nasty little thing called an anti-trust lawsuit.

I don't know if you can pull an anti-trust in the mobile world. Apple is too entrenched, and Microsoft is growing fast enough that there seems to be little danger of Google taking over everything. At the end of the day, the Microsoft anti-trust trial did squat to change the competitive landscape, except subject customers to idiotic browser ballots when using Windows for the first time. The free market basically took care of things itself, with the MS monopoly in the OS space leading to IE6 stagnating for years, creating an opening for Firefox and Chrome to come in an take IE marketshare quickly.

So how does this help me when a handset manufacturer decides `nah, youre not getting any more android updates you can sit on 4.x and like it, despite us promising the upgrades`

HTC One S - which is crippled with the helicopter bug when it goes into low signal mode - 18k handsets on the fault spreadsheet, HTC wont even acknowledge the flaw.

It really shouldnt be down to the handset maker (or tablet maker) who gets what, all it does is fragment and annoy - could you imagine the screaming if you couldnt install service pack 8.1 on a 2 year old Dell Xperion and dells response was `buy a new laptop or deal with it`

apple `only` has 20% of the market, but its a mostly monolithic market, with only generational limits - there is only the Apple Iphone after all - no samsung, nokia, ericson or Huewai iphone (actually, Im not sure about the no huewai iphone......) Sure android has 80% of the market, but aside from the 800lb gorilla that is Samsung, the marketplace is fractured and fragmented, dozens of different manufacturers, specs, chips, storage, screen size. capacitance type and more.

Both approaches have their own merits, but really, is it too much to ask to be allowed to unlock my handset/tablet and install whatever the hell I want onto it ? Call it jailbreaking, call it sideloading, call it whatever the hell you want, if HTC wont update the rom, then let me put cyanogen on there legally and transparently.

If nothing else, let me install s/w that can tell me when a `micro-cell` is in use, I want to know when the police / mi5 are intercepting peoples cellular traffic , or if someones trying to pull a clever one by injecting a premium handle cost with a micro-cell (- technical attack, can make the phone think its roaming and burn your credit/minutes accordingly).

Of course the flip side of the closed source apps is that they actually get updated. Having an open source camera app is great, but it doesn't really help you much if you're running an 18 month old build because Samsung doesn't consider it profitable enough to update your firmware.

With all due respect, why would Samsung have to 'update the firmware' in order for you to update your camera app?

The stock apps are actually part of the ROM. Its a firmware update to update them. They could change that of course (although there is actually no real mechanism to do so...), but generally newer versions of AOSP apps are built against newer versions of AOSP. There are exceptions, but eventually each app stops working with older versions of Android.

More to the point, if the OEM doesn't care enough to update the phone, they're not going to care enough to port, validate and then distribute new features to it.

Both approaches have their own merits, but really, is it too much to ask to be allowed to unlock my handset/tablet and install whatever the hell I want onto it ? Call it jailbreaking, call it sideloading, call it whatever the hell you want, if HTC wont update the rom, then let me put cyanogen on there legally and transparently.

Depends, did you buy that phone or are you just leasing it from Verizon? Because if you buy an unlocked device with your own money you pretty much can do that right now. If you "bought" a $200 Galaxy Phone from Verizon or AT&T, its not really your phone and they'll almost certainly refuse to let you unlock it.

Google might want to rethink the path that they are going down. This could obviously lead to that nasty little thing called an anti-trust lawsuit.

I don't know if you can pull an anti-trust in the mobile world. Apple is too entrenched, and Microsoft is growing fast enough that there seems to be little danger of Google taking over everything. At the end of the day, the Microsoft anti-trust trial did squat to change the competitive landscape, except subject customers to idiotic browser ballots when using Windows for the first time. The free market basically took care of things itself, with the MS monopoly in the OS space leading to IE6 stagnating for years, creating an opening for Firefox and Chrome to come in an take IE marketshare quickly.

But Google could get a ton of flack from competitors and regulators for giving everything out for free (selling at a loss) in order to gain clients in other areas (like advertising). Will they be found guilty? I doubt it. But do they want the negative publicity and the headaches from an anti-trust case?

Of course the flip side of the closed source apps is that they actually get updated. Having an open source camera app is great, but it doesn't really help you much if you're running an 18 month old build because Samsung doesn't consider it profitable enough to update your firmware.

With all due respect, why would Samsung have to 'update the firmware' in order for you to update your camera app? From using Kindle Fire, the fact is that you can download and update apps separate from having to update the firmware itself.

because the app is code stamped and needs specific features in froyo/jellybean/kitkat - and your phone is stuck on a version prior to that because that model hasnt had a firmware update since it was launched.

Theyve sold you the handset, tough, they have your money (or rather, they have the carriers money and youre beholden to the carrier) - theres no money (read profit) in it for them to keep updating the phone to the newest firmware. Hell, thats a way of driving the upgrade cycle right there, dont update the phone and the suckers have to come back in 18-24months to get a new handset and be locked into another wallet molesting deal.

This is also why the carriers arent pushing the updates particularly much either.

TLDR: Bottom line, theres no money in it for them, why would they continue to update the rom

They might be shooting themselves in the foot. At some point, carriers and smartphone manufacturers will figure something to replace google and its services, so no more google trojan unless google creates a super smartphone to dominate the market, but this i doubt it.

So how does this help me when a handset manufacturer decides `nah, youre not getting any more android updates you can sit on 4.x and like it, despite us promising the upgrades`

HTC One S - which is crippled with the helicopter bug when it goes into low signal mode - 18k handsets on the fault spreadsheet, HTC wont even acknowledge the flaw.

It really shouldnt be down to the handset maker (or tablet maker) who gets what, all it does is fragment and annoy - could you imagine the screaming if you couldnt install service pack 8.1 on a 2 year old Dell Xperion and dells response was `buy a new laptop or deal with it`

apple `only` has 20% of the market, but its a mostly monolithic market, with only generational limits - there is only the Apple Iphone after all - no samsung, nokia, ericson or Huewai iphone (actually, Im not sure about the no huewai iphone......) Sure android has 80% of the market, but aside from the 800lb gorilla that is Samsung, the marketplace is fractured and fragmented, dozens of different manufacturers, specs, chips, storage, screen size. capacitance type and more.

Both approaches have their own merits, but really, is it too much to ask to be allowed to unlock my handset/tablet and install whatever the hell I want onto it ? Call it jailbreaking, call it sideloading, call it whatever the hell you want, if HTC wont update the rom, then let me put cyanogen on there legally and transparently.

If nothing else, let me install s/w that can tell me when a `micro-cell` is in use, I want to know when the police / mi5 are intercepting peoples cellular traffic , or if someones trying to pull a clever one by injecting a premium handle cost with a micro-cell (- technical attack, can make the phone think its roaming and burn your credit/minutes accordingly).

By pulling more and more of Android in under the Play store Google can update damn near everything except for the manufacturer dependent portions like radio drivers.

You have to be a Stallman-level open source zealot to even entertain the notion of using a Google-less Android, because the experience honestly kind of sucks when you take Google out of the equation.

Huh?

I am no open-source zealot and I wasn't even specifically trying to be Google-free, but save for the Play Store and the camera app I think I've switched to non-Google apps. Simply because they were better. Which is the beauty of Android, being able to swap everything out, from the launcher to the keyboard app.

As I said in a previous thread, when people start talking antitrust and Google, I think Android, not search. That said, this is a replication of a problem occurring in many industries. It's just like Paypal and credit card companies deciding who you can do business with or receive the money paid to you, or whether you can get an app in the iOS marketplace. I think there's strong evidence that platform operators, marketplaces, and middlemen need legal restrictions to curtail their anticompetitive practices - run a marketplace? If it'd be legal to resell privately and poses no security threat, there should be no right to refuse it or give it terms different than for anything else. If you process payments, you should be required to accept any payment rather than getting to moralize about not selling knives and pipes or seize money from some poor crowdfunder. If you create a multi-partner platform, you shouldn't be allowed to turn it into a cartel by creating collusive and restrictive membership terms. In general, anti-competitive or restrictive practices should be presumed harmful and be restricted legally.

From the standpoint of the individual user, Google is what brings value to Android devices and makes them useful, so that right there is a pretty good reason why the ASOP versions of those apps have stagnated. For example, the Nook tablet devices really didn't become all that useful for most users until they gained access to the Google services and the Play Store. You have to be a Stallman-level open source zealot to even entertain the notion of using a Google-less Android, because the experience honestly kind of sucks when you take Google out of the equation. Remember, customers these days aren't buying for the OS, they are buying for the larger ecosystem. The OS is just a way to get them the services they want to use, and all it is there for is to get in the way as little as possible.

I bought my first Android device a few weeks ago, it has no closed source Google applications on it, not even the Google Play store, and it works just fine. I haven't found myself at all limited in what I can do with it, except that the manufacturer hasn't released any updates to the firmware since 2.2 so I can't use a number of more recently made programs.</anecdata>

Interesting article. There are two players who could fork android without the major problems posed to (say) Samsung or even Amazon: Microsoft and Apple. In other words, if owning the low level OS ever became a burden for either, they could change tack and port their API layers to Android. (This of course begs the old question of why Nokia ever went windows phone instead of building on android.)

Interesting article. There are two players who could fork android without the major problems posed to (say) Samsung or even Amazon: Microsoft and Apple. In other words, if owning the low level OS ever became a burden for either, they could change tack and port their API layers to Android. (This of course begs the old question of why Nokia ever went windows phone instead of building on android.)

I get your point here but I think Microsoft and Apple would have to be pretty damn desperate to do that.

Both approaches have their own merits, but really, is it too much to ask to be allowed to unlock my handset/tablet and install whatever the hell I want onto it ? Call it jailbreaking, call it sideloading, call it whatever the hell you want, if HTC wont update the rom, then let me put cyanogen on there legally and transparently.

Depends, did you buy that phone or are you just leasing it from Verizon? Because if you buy an unlocked device with your own money you pretty much can do that right now. If you "bought" a $200 Galaxy Phone from Verizon or AT&T, its not really your phone and they'll almost certainly refuse to let you unlock it.

Im in the UK, and the subsidised handset isnt subsidised all that much any more, 12 -15 years ago, the mobile phone store would get a nice payment for signing someone up to a contract (source, worked for phonestore in the mid to late 90s) - these days that payment is something like $5 - the subsidy isnt there any more and the charges are more or less baked into your rental.

UK wise, the person making the call pays for it - the reciever, pays nothing, doesnt burn minutes, isnt charged (unlike the US system where both parties are being screwed by the cellular companies). SMS has been considered `essential` for a very long time and most deals come with data & texts baked in.

Its also a replacement handset, insurance screwed up on the first attempt so they gave me a brand new (unlocked) handset. Which Id be happy about, if it didnt helicopter bug due to them using a crap wifi chip and mounting it, like the geniuses they are, right behind where the home button sits on the screen. So drop from wifi to 3g/edge/EDO/CMDA and it overheats and click flick click flick click flick -- its eating the storage with screenshots every 1.5 seconds and cycling through all the home screens (go ahead, youtube HTC helicopter).

HTC have basically said `we promised it, but the HTC One S wont get anything newer than 4.2` and are utterly ignoring customers with the screen bug. Mostly because theyve spent all their money on the HTC ONE and several million buying Robert Downey Jr to market it. Shame really, because I wont buy another HTC product.

Samsung have the opportunity, to not only be the 800,lb gorilla when it comes to handsets, but to take android in a more apple like direction.

Six years ago, in November 2007, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was announced. The original iPhone came out just a few months earlier, capturing people's imaginations and ushering in the modern smartphone era.

Six years ago, in November 2007, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was announced. The original iPhone came out just a few months earlier, capturing people's imaginations and ushering in the modern smartphone era.

Excellent excellent article which does much to readdress the balance of other articles which I've seen on Ars, and highlights what is really going on to the naive.

Another tactic they are using is 3rd party app DRM -- buy an app on Google Play and in the vast majority of cases you will be required to have Google Apps/Google Play installed on any other device which you wish to use the paid app on.

Also believe that there is a requirement added recently on Google Play to only allow Google Wallet for in-app purchases (and I'm not sure but they may have also have extended that to only allowing Google advertising?)

it could send and recieve faxes, had a seperate flip open screen/keyboard, had a clunky version of wifi and could get itself online, text messages, emails, a basic office suite.

This was around the time that nokias `clic` banana phone was hugely popular - it had a slide release meachanism which dropped the keypad cover down - you know the phone Neo gets from Morpheus in the Matrix movie - that type.

From the standpoint of the individual user, Google is what brings value to Android devices and makes them useful, so that right there is a pretty good reason why the ASOP versions of those apps have stagnated. For example, the Nook tablet devices really didn't become all that useful for most users until they gained access to the Google services and the Play Store. You have to be a Stallman-level open source zealot to even entertain the notion of using a Google-less Android, because the experience honestly kind of sucks when you take Google out of the equation. Remember, customers these days aren't buying for the OS, they are buying for the larger ecosystem. The OS is just a way to get them the services they want to use, and all it is there for is to get in the way as little as possible.

Since the NSA thing I feel more comfortable running open source code on my machines and thus use cyanogenmod 10.1.3 with no google apps. It's pretty much got everything I need after I've installed f-droid and a few apps from that store

Just wanted to say, awesome article. Informative, insightful, and well written, one of the best on Ars in a while.

Regarding the subject, what Google is doing is definitely not in the interest of the OEMs (maybe even dirty tactics) or the open source community, but is it in the interest of end users? I'd say so. You get more timely updates for more OS components, less fragmentation, and top notch quality services. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just pointing out the benefits.

EDIT: It's only a rumor, but it seems Google is planning on doing the same to the launcher and moving it to the Play Store under the name "Google Experience".

You have to be a Stallman-level open source zealot to even entertain the notion of using a Google-less Android, because the experience honestly kind of sucks when you take Google out of the equation.

Huh?

I am no open-source zealot and I wasn't even specifically trying to be Google-free, but save for the Play Store and the camera app I think I've switched to non-Google apps. Simply because they were better. Which is the beauty of Android, being able to swap everything out, from the launcher to the keyboard app.

I don't know which apps you use.. but I think what the author is trying to say is that those apps most likely use Google APIs. This beholdens you to Google Android and not your own forked version of Android.

Excellent story Ron. I maintain several Android security projects (OpenPDroid among them) which necessitate extensive patching of the open-source Android framework. I spend a bunch of energy explaining to users and partners who maybe should know better the difference between AOSP and stock Nexus, or Google Developer Edition software.

I have also seen first hand the casualties of the CTS, and the preemptive wrangling it can engender in prospective OEM partnerships, and even watched groups as well connected as the NSA get confounded by the sectioning off of Android and the mysteries of the CTS.

Just wanted to say, awesome article. Informative, insightful, and well written, one of the best on Ars in a while.

Regarding the subject, what Google is doing is definitely not in the interest of the OEMs (maybe even dirty tactics) or the open source community, but is it in the interest of end users? I'd say so. You get more timely updates for more OS components, less fragmentation, and top notch quality services. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just pointing out the benefits.

Perhaps in the short-term, but things like this are never in the better interests of users long-term.

Interesting article. There are two players who could fork android without the major problems posed to (say) Samsung or even Amazon: Microsoft and Apple. In other words, if owning the low level OS ever became a burden for either, they could change tack and port their API layers to Android. (This of course begs the old question of why Nokia ever went windows phone instead of building on android.)

Nokia went Windows Phone because their recently hired CEO was a former Microsoft-ian. Otherwise they probably would have chosen to make both Windows and Android phones, like most other OEMs do.

While it might be technically feasible for Apple and Microsoft to dump their own OSes and fork AOSP for their own purposes neither would do it for entirely un-technical reasons. Microsoft suffers from "not invented here" syndrome and has even gone so far as to buy entire companies only to snuff out their projects in favor of some lesser developed project that came out of the bowels of Microsoft itself. And Apple is just too proud/arrogant to ever give Android a win like that. They would probably drive iOS off of the proverbial cliff and pronounce that mobile was dead before adopting anything Android.

And as for anti-trust on the mobile front, I don't think it's going to happen. Even if Android runs 80% of the devices out there and Google keeps up with it's attempts to control the OS with the reacharound iron fist the worst that would happen is a few regulators grumbling about how they don't like it even though it's not technically illegal and Google swearing to make some changes that ultimately prove to be nothing substantial. Anti-trust is a huge bar to try and get across from a legal standpoint. Even Microsoft never really got stung by it and they were worse than Google has ever been back in their glory days.

Ars goes from complaining about Android fragmentation with articles such as:"Android fragmentation: one developer encounters 3,997 devices"to claiming that Google is working on fixing the fragmentation problems by separating as much as they can from the OS:"Balky carriers and slow OEMs step aside: Google is defragging Android"but now claims that Google is actually "locking in manufacturers""Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary"

I think the article, "Google is defragging Andoid", is probably more accurate. Google is doing this because they have to. Handset providers will never (unless required) release regular updates.

Finally a graph that recognize the existence of Symbian. Never mind that it shows that it was Android that killed Symbian rather than iOS (it basically wash around down among the rest of the mobile platforms). Most likely it was cheap Android phone selling to the developing world that did it.

Interesting article. There are two players who could fork android without the major problems posed to (say) Samsung or even Amazon: Microsoft and Apple. In other words, if owning the low level OS ever became a burden for either, they could change tack and port their API layers to Android. (This of course begs the old question of why Nokia ever went windows phone instead of building on android.)

Nokia went Windows Phone because their recently hired CEO was a former Microsoft-ian. Otherwise they probably would have chosen to make both Windows and Android phones, like most other OEMs do.